The investigation in 2005 was undertaken in areas Fondo Casino and Fondo Casino 1.

In the area of Fondo Casino work continued on the residential quarter that had been uncovered in previous years. The area of the building which partially covered the large road to the east with cobble paving was investigated.

This building was formed by two rectangular spaces on an east-west alignment. The space to the north may be interpreted as a porticoed area that functioned as an entrance to the second space. The latter was larger and covered by a roof of semi-curved tiles, its north, west and south walls were well preserved. Below a collapse was an abandonment layer covering the floor, formed on the south side of the room by bedrock and on the north side by a surface of compact beaten earth and crushed tufa. Lying on the floor were numerous pottery fragments including an impasto pithoide vase. Along the northern back wall of the room was a hearth surrounded by a low wall of stones placed in a semicircle up against the wall. The building partly covered the paving of the road, therefore it must have been constructed during the last phase of the settlement’s life (first half of the 5th century B.C.) or following the abandonment of the city, and could be identified as a rural structure relating to occupation of the area after the mid 5th century B.C. abandonment.

Exploration of the area of Fondo Casino 1, near the “Museo Diffuso di Cavallino”, brought to light a large building with several occupation phases. Towards the mid 6th century B.C. a first structure was built, with three large rooms and a large courtyard. The foundations were made of stone blocks of exceptional size, some almost three metres long. The walls were made of small stones and the roof of semi-curved tiles. The main room, with a well made floor of compacted crushed tufa, seems to have been the house’s reception room.

In the second phase a large portico was built in front of the main room. This obliterated an earlier and smaller room. In the main room the entrance threshold was moved and a new door-hinge was put in; the crushed tufa paving was cut for the insertion of large containers for dry goods. The room had clearly changed function, becoming a storage space. New walls were added and two large courtyards were built in the northern part of the structure, where a number of hearths were put in. These were later partially cut by the insertion of an infant burial.

In the last phase the building was dismantled, but the area was still used. A roof supported by wooden posts was built, the post-holes visible in the crushed tufa floor, to cover a rectangular hole faced with limestone slabs, perhaps a cult or funerary structure. In the area of the building a large pit was also found, filled with material recovered in large part from the demolition of the complex. The pottery present dates the structure to the 4th-3rd century B.C., the result of the reorganisation of the area for agricultural purposes in the Hellenistic period.

Other structures emerged below the archaic building: a single roomed structure with a square plan roofed with plant materials, given the total absence of clay tiles below the collapse of the walls. The materials recovered date the building’s abandonment to the end of the 7th-beginning of the 6th century B.C. and suggest that it was a small 7th century B.C. oikos. This is the first evidence of the passage from Iron Age settlement, with oval huts covered with straw and mud, to archaic settlement with square structures having foundations of large squared blocks, walls of small stones and tile roofs.

The area investigated in 2006 revealed a series of structures (mainly foundations) relating to the archaic settlement (7th-6th century B.C.) and the earlier Iron Age hut village.